Cigarette feeding apparatus



Aug. 21, 1956 w. J. KEMP CIGARETTE FEEDING APPARATUS Filed March 3, 1954 3 Sheets-Sheet l Lil 1956 w. J. KEMP 359,30

CIGARETTE FEEDING APPARATUS Filed March 5. 1954 5 Sheets-Sheet 2 FTTURNE S 21, 1956 w. J. KEMP 2,79,3W

CIGARETTE FEEDING APPARATUS Filed March 3, 1954 3 Sheets-Sheet 3 INVENTOR WZZZmrzz mil/@272,

ATTORNEYS United States Patent i CIGARETTE FEEDING APPARATUS William Joseph Kemp, Deptford, London, England, as-

signor to Molins Machine Company, Limited, London, England, a British company Application March 3, 1954, Serial No. 413,873

Claims priority, application Great Britain March 12, 1953 3 Claims. (Cl. 53-151) This invention concerns improvements in cigarette feeding apparatus and more particularly apparatus for feeding oval cigarettes. The apparatus is of the well-known type where cigarettes are placed in a hopper which has an outlet at its base subdivided into slots by partitions. These partitions, which are always known as vanes, are joined or otherwise associated together as a unit and the assembly is hereafter called a vane assembly or unit. As a rule the vanes are vertical, though it is known to position them at an acute angle to the horizontal.

The feeding of oval cigarettes is much more difiicult than the feeding of round cigarettes and in addition it is nearly always desired to assemble rows of the cigarettes in lapped formation for packing. Hitherto this lapping has been performed as a separate operation, that is, after the cigarettes have passed out of the vane slots. This means that devices for lapping the cigarettes have to be fitted to the machine and in a place where there is usually very little room, and that the control over the cigarettes which exists during feeding is lost.

According to the present invention there is provided apparatus for feeding oval cigarettes in lapped formation comprising a hopper having a vane assembly wherein the vanes are disposed at a suitable acute angle to the bed of the machine and means for vibrating the assembly at a high speed with small amplitude whereby the cigarettes are caused to pass down the slots, which are just wide enough to allow the cigarettes to move with their major axes substantially in line with the centre lines of the slots. In this way a row of cigarettes leaves the lower ends of the slots roughly positioned for lapping and the subsequent gathering into the desired width and final lapped disposition is facilitated. Preferably the cigarettes are removed from beneath the slots a row at a time and to this end the device illustrated and described in United States patent application No. 1,618,214 may be employed.

The invention will be briefly described with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:

Figure 1 is a sectional front elevation of the apparatus.

Figure 2 is a side elevation, partly broken away.

Figure 3 is a sectional plan on the line III-III of Figure 1.

Referring to the drawings, 1 is the hopper having base plates 2 and an agitator 3, which may be duplicated. The cigarettes 4 are indicated chiefly by hatching. The vane assembly is generally indicated by 5 and consists of vanes 6 which slope at about 45 to the horizontal. The vanes are fixed together by bolts 7 and spacers 8. Four such bolts are provided, three of which are shown in Figure 2, the fourth being obscured by the bearing 16. A crosspiece 22, extending between and held in position by the two upper bolts 7 (as viewed in Figure 2), has a rod 9 fixed to it in any convenient manner. The rod slides in a guide 10 and is reciprocated by a short connecting suitably slotted to clear the vanes.

rod 11 which is mounted on a crank pin 12. The pin 12 is part of a crank disc 14 which is fixed to a shaft 15 journalled in a bearing 16 and rotated by a pulley 17. The throw of the crank is indicated at 13, Figure l, and it will be noted that it is very small. A fiat spring 18 is attached to the other end of the upper bolts 7 of the vane unit and is also fixed to the machine frame. Thus as the pulley 17 is rotated the vane assembly is vibrated and a very high rate of vibration is contemplated. For this purpose the pulley will be driven at speeds of say, from one to six thousand revolutions per minute, according to circumstances. Some cigarettes of much better shape and more accurate in size than other makes and in some countries the paper used is sticky, owing to substances added to the tobacco, and thus the feeding is more difiicult in some cases than others and will require more vibration.

The cigarettes emerging from the slots are supported on a plate 19 over which a pusher 20 runs, the arrangement being the same as in the specification referred to. The plate 19 may be grooved to keep the cigarettes in position and suitable side guides (not shown) are provided to gather the cigarettes to the desired width and associate them closely together in the desired lapped formation.

In order that only a predetermined number of rows (in the example illustrated one such row) of cigarettes are removed at a time from the slots by the pusher 20, plates such as the plate 21 shown in Figure 1 are provided in the slots. It will be easily seen that in the example illustrated only the lowermost row of cigarettes will be removed by the pusher 20, but if it is desired to remove two or three rows, the plates 21 may be arranged accordingly, that is, shortened and the pusher 20 The plates 21 also serve to keep the cigarettes in alignment one above the other in the slots. However oval cigarettes are best fed in single rows and their orientation can be preserved, when two or more rows are superimposed for packing, by numerous difierent known devices.

What I claim as my invention and desire to secure by Letters Patent is:

1. Apparatus for feeding oval cigarettes in lapped formation comprising a hopper mounted above a machine bed and having a vane assembly consisting of a number of vanes spaced apart to provide slots down which cigarettes pass from the hopper clamped together as a rigid unit wherein the vanes are disposed at an inclination \to the bed of the machine and means for vibrating the assembly at a high speed with small amplitude whereby the cigarettes are caused to be discharged from the hopper down the slots, which are just wide enough to allow the cigarettes to move with their major axes substantially in line with the centre lines of the slots.

2. Apparatus as claimed in claim 1 comprising a plate at the base of the vane assembly to support cigarettes and a pusher movable over said plate to remove at least one row of cigarettes resting on the plate.

3. Apparatus as claimed in claim 2 wherein the plate is grooved to assist in maintaining the cigarettes in the same relative disposition as occupied in the vane assembly.

Molins Aug. 1, 1933 Orstnom Jan. 1, 1935 Patented Aug. 21, 1956 

